


albatross

by rowdyhomo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Flashbacks, Foundations: A Naruto Founders Zine, Gen, Introspection, Tobirama centric, Unreliable Narrator, Warring States Period (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowdyhomo/pseuds/rowdyhomo
Summary: tobirama breathes and remembers--who knew that dying could make such a sentimentalist of him.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama & Uchiha Izuna & Uchiha Madara
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Foundations: A Naruto Founders Zine





	albatross

**Author's Note:**

> did i keep forgetting to post this? yes. has it been years? maybe idk time is fake. anyway *slaps fic* this baby fits so much sadness in it.

Tobirama breathes.

Ragged inhale, labored exhale. In and out. It’s all he can do at this point. Sprawled, not quite lifeless, but rapidly approaching it faster than the blood seeping from his wounds. Into the dirt and the grass. His body lays less heavy and more insensate to the line where Tobirama ends and the world begins.

At least it’s quiet. 

The silence of death permeates even the rustle of wind through foliage. There’s little he hoped for concerning his death, but not having to spend his last moments of consciousness bombarded by unnecessary sound is nice enough. Tobirama has long learned to take his blessings as they come.

But, gods, the  _ grass _ . It just will not stop brushing against his ear in the most excruciatingly soft manner that makes his skin crawl and itch with the urge to slap the sensation away.

He can’t even move his face, damn it. Least of all, lift an arm to scratch it.

Tobirama inhales. The sharp cold air burns through his lungs.

The Senju has enough mind left in him to realize that concocting the demise of a few blades of green should lay awfully low on his list of priorities. Certainly, precedence should be given to any numerous other issues at hand.

Dying, for one.

(But, really is it so bad…?)

His team—well, no. The Kumo squad is very, very dead around him. 

The village? 

Well, Tobirama has never been much for worrying about what is yet to come. Preparing for all eventualities is a given. But anxiety over what is yet to be struck too close to impracticality for his tastes. A small part of his brain still runs, turns, and plans, in approximation of his version of worry. It’s a background chatter he’s unable to shut off. Tobirama can, however, ignore it, as there’s nothing to be done about it anymore.

Regrets…?

The Senju is a man of practicality to his core, of imminent logical reasoning and a shinobi from a clan that was at war for most of his life. War which mean anyone, and everyone could disappear like morning mist before the sun. It was only logical, only practical, then, to make damn sure he meant what he said, and did what he held only conviction in. After all, it could very well be the last thing he said or did to someone. The idea of regretting his last words or actions towards someone dear twisted him up more than any blade could.

Still, he is only human. Mistakes happen to the best.

An exhale.

His eyelids weigh down impossibly heavy. A bit whimsically, Tobirama wonders if his breath left any foggy impressions on the cold Autumn air. Or if the cold touch of death had already left him too insignificant to affect the world in even such a small manner. 

There’s nothing Tobirama would point at now and agree wholeheartedly he should have acted differently. Even in the case of the deaths of his loved ones. Tobirama has long since known that regret regarding Death is a futile wish at best. 

Death will do as Death wishes with or without one’s permission. Not even his Resurrection Technique could truly outwit it. Only bring back mockeries—puppets trapped in an unwilling half-life. And even then, Death is not unwilling, cheated, but  _ allowing _ because it first demands a price. Death for death…no wonder no life could come of it.

Inhale—that  _ damned _ grass! 

If there truly is an afterlife, a Pure Lands as his mother believed, it better be nothing but  _ dirt _ . Precedence and priorities be damned, Tobirama honestly can’t remember a time when something irritated him  _ more  _ than this inconsistent, slight, completely unstoppable tickling of his ear.

Hashirama will cry about it. A dirt full and green less afterlife. It never took much with him.

That is, if the Pure Lands truly exist and Hashirma is there at all..

The Senju’s chest aches just thinking about it. An empty raw and scraping thing that Tobirama blames on the fact most of his insides are outside. Certainly not grief. He’d done his grieving. Great ugly sobs that tore and tore and still demanded he pour out  _ more _ —yes, he’d done his grieving. 

Tobirama exhales.

Private and efficient grief that he then set away on a shelf, never to revisit. Because there’s a village to lead, to continue cobbling together, and urging along on fledgling wings. Because there’s allies to be made, borders to be mapped, tailed beasts to consider. And then because there’s war looming and nothing  _ nothing  _ Tobirama does stops peace from slipping through his fingers like sand—

(Of course, it is him who leads them back to war. Of course, it’s him, the second, the shadow, the mimicry of a person who’d never been half the man he pretended to be.  _ Of course _ .)

—his thoughts slip and slide together like oil and water and for one blessed moment Tobirama thinks nothing at all. His stupid genius brain doesn’t shut off for long, back and racing just as fast no matter the fact he’s dying. Already dead, really. Technicalities aside. Everything he has done is  _ done.  _ There’s no way to trace his steps back like trying to find a misplaced object. 

This is all there is. 

The end. 

Done.

_ (Breathe in. Breathe out.) _

After several moments longer than it would have taken were he completely in the right mind, Tobirama corrects himself. 

It’s  _ his _ end, certainly, but not  _ the  _ end. Konoha would go on in the hands of a generation that fortunately knew peace as unfortunately they knew war. A generation that could, hopefully, see and run towards bigger and brighter futures than what his own ever did. 

Tobirama doesn’t blame his generation for being what their time made them. Child soldiers chewed up and spit out. Who knew no rest, no peace, no safety, only killing and killing  _ first _ because if you didn’t the next body in the ground would be yours. Or worse, someone  _ else _ when it should have been _ you. _

No, he doesn’t blame for doing what one must to survive.

_ (Breathe in, breathe out.) _

They can be blamed, however, for refusing to change. 

For all that they tired of war, it was also all they knew, and old habits are as difficult as grudges to scrub clean. Few had managed to bury their hatchet to rot with the other relics of the past, forgotten. Most had buried it, but never forgot where, ready to dig it up at a moment’s provocation.

(And Tobirama? He knew  _ exactly _ where his hatchet lay—between two too small bodies in two too big coffins.)

So, no, not the end. Perhaps even a beginning instead. A time for ghosts to finally find rest and the last vestiges of a bygone time to fade from living memory.

_ (Breathe in…and out.) _

The world muffles around him. As if the Senju lay in a suffocating pile of wool instead of strewn among several bodies in a bloody battlefield. With the last of his senses fading, Tobirama feels like he’s floating in nothing. 

He can’t even discern the  _ lub-dub _ of his own heartbeat. That is probably—would probably—be disconcerting. 

Mostly, Tobirama feels relief.

He hadn’t lied to his team in his reasoning to stay behind. Even now when he no longer needed to lie to himself, he doesn’t believe any other choice would be more logical. However, he had, perhaps, just maybe, omitted a little bit of truth.

Tobirama is  _ tired _ .

_ (Breathe in.) _

Tired of fighting, tired of surviving, tired of living. He was tired long before his last brother’s death. Tired of  _ being _ . 

First, because Tobirama hadn’t been  _ allowed  _ to be anything else but a double-edged sword with no sheath. Then, because he didn’t know  _ how _ to be anything else and the world no longer had need of weapons like him. He tried to make a place for himself. To change his mold into something more like a leopard’s paw with its claws retracted instead of teeth bared in constant threat. Tobirama tried with everything in him. In the end, though, he never quite found whatever it is that made Hashirama a good  _ man _ instead of a good  _ shinobi _ . 

Despite this, Tobirama likes to think—hopes—that he put some good back out into the world. In his students if nothing else.

If not, well.

His grave was dug the moment a kunai was put into his chubby four-year-old fist. He’s had more than thirty years to come to terms with it. He’s ready to lie in it.

_ (Breathe out.) _

Still. 

Tobirama would be more gracious about it if that  _ damned grass _ would stop tickling his ear—and. 

Thoughts slip and catch. Endorphins flooding him to keep his failing body alive collide with triggering synapses. 

A memory, a mirror, a perfect echo of sensations rises to the front of his brain, and like a stumbling drunk he  _ falls _

_ (In…and out.) _

Another crisp Autumn day, like any other. Summer air only just gaining an edge of chill to it as leaves dull and brighten just before their fall. A sun that doesn’t warm shining bright.

Tobirama is ten, laying on his belly in the underbrush, preternaturally still, senses wide open. His brother lies beside him. Impatient. Wriggling subtly and sending strands of bob cut fly-aways brushing against Tobirama’s ear. It takes every ounce of his considerable self-control not to snap because, really. One would think Tobirama agreeing to this insanity  _ at all _ would garner more gratitude and an attempt at better behavior but, well. Tobirama  _ really _ should have known. Asking Hashirama to behave properly is rather like asking the tides to cease. 

Nonetheless, while this  _ is _ insanity there are still standards and rules to follow. Hashirama can take his impatience and  _ shove _ it. 

Preferably somewhere painful and embarrassing.

Tobirama makes use of a pointed elbow to quiet the older boy. Miracle of all miracles, Hashirama pouts but goes grumpily still. Most importantly, he stays quiet. Just in time for chakra sense and vision to bleed together as two boys emerge from the foliage on the other side of the river. Both dark haired and dark eyed. One unknown but not unfamiliar. The other very unfortunately and personally known.

Gods, why had he agreed to this?

_ (In…out.) _

Tobirama digs his nails into Hashirama’s wrists to keep him from getting too antsy while observing the two Uchiha. 

Izuna, expectedly, is scanning their surroundings with all the suspicions a chubby cheeked eleven-year-old can muster. Madara—as Hashirama informed him—looks about as well but his tone when he speaks to his brother is placating, reassuring. The elder’s eyes look worried but not wary. Not overtly anyway.

Some way, some how this Uchiha trusted a Senju. Granted, that Senju was Hashirama but still.

The younger Senju waits a few moments more, senses straining to detect any tails, any signs of a trap…

He finds none.

He’s actually has to go through with this, doesn’t he?

Tobirama curses internally with a string of words he’s not supposed know. Then, employing speed that will one day be legendary, he stands and drags Hashirama after him in a manner that hopefully didn’t look like they had just been hiding. In the dirt. For hours while Hashirama’s unruly bowl cut fly-away hairs tickled endlessly at Tobirama’s ear.

_ (In…) _

“Brother tripped,” is all Tobirama says. Voice flat with well-practiced resignation. Predictably, Hashirama squawks beside him.

Izuna squints at him with familiar suspicion but Madara only sighs with well-worn exasperation.

“Really?” asks the elder Uchiha.

Hashirama wails, “I did  _ not _ !”

“Denial  _ is _ the first sign of guilt, y’know,” sneers their fourth.

A beat.

Three pairs of eyes fall on the youngest Uchiha. Izuna’s face does something complicated as he realizes that he’d just  _ bantered _ . With the  _ enemy _ .

It looks how Tobirama feels—he’d sooner fall on his own kunai than say so, though.

Hashirama droops, pressing his pointer fingers together as he mumbles gloomily about…something. Tobirama tends to tune his brother out during these episodes. The quickest way for them to end is to not feed the fire, so to speak. The elder Uchiha—Madara—hasn’t seemed to have learned that lesson, funnily enough. He’s floundering about, physically and vocally, trying to get Hashirama to pull himself together.

_ (…out.) _

Tobirama tunes back in when Hashirama’s tirade goes up several pitches as he points an accusing finger at Madara, “—I haven’t even gotten to make a first impression and your brother’s already making fun of me! Some best friend you are, what did you tell him, huh?!”

“I didn’t say anything! You’re acting an idiot all your own!”

“Everyone’s so  _ mean _ ,” whines Hashirama.

Izuna’s expression uncomplicates a bit, morphing into more of a sneer that raises Tobirama’s hackles—

All the younger Uchiha does is say, “If this’s how you always are, it’s deserved. Besides, only absolutely moronic shinobi  _ trip _ .”

“But I didn’t!” shrieks Hashirama.

Oddly enough, their meetup doesn’t devolve overtly much from there. 

At least, it doesn’t devolve into kunai flinging. 

There’s suspicious looks and a tension that can’t quite be dismissed as the elders try to engage the younger in rock skipping. Sharp words that border on too sharp when the oldest pair wrestle for fun. But Hashirama and Madara’s familiarity with one another easily outweighs Izuna and Tobirama’s animosity. The difference between genuine and practiced emotion Tobirama supposes, watching as Madara arguably tries to drown his elder brother in the river they’re, arguably, playing in and doing his best not to flinch.

_ (In…) _

Izuna sits several feet to Tobirama’s left, face propped in his hands, and a pout attempting to be a scowl across his face.

It’s not the companionship their elder brothers were undoubtedly hoping for. But at least they weren’t attempting to kill each other. Yet.

The younger Senju gives an internal groan. His gaze cuts away from the two buffoons in the water to glance at Izuna. Tobirama knows he’ll never hear the end of it if he doesn’t at least make some sort of attempt at socializing with the Uchiha. But what can he even say? Whatever common ground the two of them might share is already too thoroughly salted by their respective blood and Clan. His brother and Madara might be happy and willing to pretend they don’t know the open secret but Tobirama can’t forget.

From the look on his face as Hashirama grabs Madara’s ankle and pulls him under, Izuna can’t either.

Izuna’s gaze flicks over to Tobirama a moment later, matching his stare with a scowl.

“What,” mutters Izuna, voice flat.

Tobirama’s mouth, without any input from his brain, spits back reflexively, “Your hair looks stupid.”

Izuna blinks, head tilting in a way Tobirama knows from experience means he very much wants to set the Senju on fire.

It’s sort of awful that he’s familiar with it.

Because that familiarity leads Tobirama to follow up, “Still hasn’t grown out from last time, huh?”

_ (…out.) _

Tobirama isn’t the least bit surprised when Izuna jumps to his feet shrieking—the Uchiha is so easy to rile up. But he has to resist the urge to slam a palm to his own forehead. He shouldn’t be taking refuge in patterns familiar to him. Especially so when familiar between the two of them means trying to kill each other.

“What’re you talking about? You barely cut off half an inch!” shouts Izuna.

Tobirama sputters in genuine surprise. “Y’mean that hair is on  _ purpose _ ?”

“ _ Excuse me _ ?”

“You’re excused,” Tobirama returns smartly.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he came with the polite-society filter everyone else seemed to have. Instead, when deprived of a knife, all he got is the urge to stab with words.

Izuna howls impotently, “ _ You _ !”

Tobirama notes in the back of his mind that the noise from the river has ceased but fails to assign it any meaning. All his conscious focus is on Izuna stomping toward him with furious intent. Tobirama rises to meet him, hand itching for a weapon he  _ doesn’t _ reach for—he  _ refuses _ to be the first to break their brothers’ word. 

_ (In…) _

Izuna doesn’t draw a weapon, either. Merely keeps his fists clenched at his sides as he yells into Tobirama’s face, “At least I’m not stuck looking like a sick rat for the rest of my life!”

“At least I’ll  _ have _ a life—with your stupidity I’ll be surprised if you make it to twelve.”

“Arrogant Senju!”

“Blind Uchiha!”

Water crashes over them. It’s a weak suiton jutsu at best. Too little force to it to be anything effective but it has enough volume to soak the younger boys from head to toe. Tobirama can see his surprise mirrored in Izuna’s slack-jawed expression. The two boys continue to stare at each other in mute shock, sopping wet, before slowly turning to stare at their brothers.

Hashirama stands in the shallows, hands together in the final hand sign for the water wave jutsu he’s seen Tobirama perform a hundred times. There’s an entirely too smug look in his eye as he giggles with barely restrained mirth. Beside him, Madara cackles freely.

“You both look like sick, drowned rats now!” wheezes Madara, nearly bent in two with the force of his laugh. “Oh gods, the  _ looks _ on your faces!”

Tobirama looks to Izuna. Izuna turns to him. Their eyes meet. In that moment, an unshakeable ephemeral bond, the likes that can only arise between two slighted younger siblings, forms. They nod to each other in iron clad agreement.

Today, Madara and Hashirama die.

_ (…out.) _

Madara realizes the danger first, must recognize something in Izuna’s face. The older Uchiha chokes on his next guffaw. Then, eyes wide, makes to scramble away across the river in all haste. Hashirama stares dumbly after in confusion.

Izuna and Tobirama pounce.

The battle that follows is hardly one fit for ballads. There’s undignified hair pulling, shrieking, attempted fratricide, and splashing and dunking are the only weapons to be seen. But its enough to leave the four boys exhausted and three pounds heavier soaking wet.

Tobirama pointedly keeps his nose in the air as Hashirama sulks beside Madara and the fire pit they’re building. He peels off his dripping clothes to lay out to dry on the rocky bank. The air is just a bit too nippy for damp cloth against the skin. 

Next to him, Izuna shucks off his own clothes. Merely throwing them haphazardly instead of laying them flat. There’s a smug look on the younger Uchiha’s face that in any other situation Tobirama would sock him for on principal.

“It’s not fair,” whines Hashirama, drawing out the final symbol an unbearably long time.

Madara whaps him upside the head without looking up from his task of firewood arrangement, hissing at him to get back to work. For all that he seems to acquiesce to the younger’s terms, there’s a frightening scowl seemingly permanently etched into his face and the way he sets the fire alight seems just a tad moody.

Sore losers, the both of them, Tobirama thinks. Pleased like a well-fed cat.

Hashirama tugs despondently on the line of his makeshift fishing rod. “I don’t get why just ‘cause they won, they get to have all the fun.”

Madara stares blankly at Hashirama for a moment before looking over at their younger brothers. The two of them are sitting, three feet apart, in silence. Whatever camaraderie they’d managed while ganging up on their older siblings had vanished. 

At least the silence sat more comfortably now. 

The older Uchiha looks back at his friend, “You’ve got a weird sense of fun.”

Hashirama flaps his hands dismissively, “Y’know what I mean. This is supposed to be an outing—not  _ work _ .”

Because his fuse where Hashirama is concerned is less of a short one and more nonexistent, Madara shoves Hashirama in the direction of the river, snapping, “Ugh! Just go—go catch the fish already!”

_ (In…) _

Izuna snickers causing the older Uchiha to whirl and level a threatening finger in the boy’s direction. The younger smiles demurely. A muscle in Madara’s jaw twitches as he opens his mouth then seems to think better of it. Instead, Madara simply grunts irritably. Defeated, if Izuna’s smile tilting wicked is anything to go by.

“And  _ you _ , menace and plague of my existence, get over here before you catch cold,” demands Madara, while shucking his own clothes with enough violence one might wonder if the cloth had done him personal harm. He vaguely motions in Tobirama’s direction. “You, uh, you should probably too, y’know. I’m just saying, so, just so Hashirama doesn’t cry on me or whatever.”

Giving that eloquence the judgmental eyebrow it deserves, Tobirama nonetheless follows Izuna to sit across from the two Uchiha. 

Tobirama watches, amused, as Madara and Izuna deal pointed insults and easy affection in equal measure. Amusement bleeds to bemusement when Madara awkwardly tries to include him. Tobirama isn’t quite sure he manages the right balance of kindness and meanness to constitute teasing. His humor always has been too dry. Tobirama does his best to return the effort Madara puts in until Hashirama catches enough fish for them to have two each.

Madara leaves Izuna’s side to join in gutting and prepping the fish with Hashirama. The two older boys sharing easy conversation mostly made up of Hashirama’s chatter and Madara grunts of various tones and length.

Izuna and Tobirama sit in silence.

The older siblings fail to notice, too caught up in their own world. The conversation having rapidly steamrolled over into a well-trodden narrative. Of a village, of peace, of safety.

The younger siblings’ eyes meet across the cook fire. There’s understanding there, in their matched stares. An odd kinship borne of an apparent shared truth. Their brother’s dream—wonderful and grand—is just that. With a grand total of ten and eleven years under their belt, blooded in war for half of them, realists, they know there cannot be peace.

But.

They’ll let their brother’s have this one day.

_ Next time, though _ , says Izuna yet black gaze.

_ Next time, _ agrees Tobirama’s blood red eyes.

Next time, next meeting, they will do their duty as they must, as younger siblings, as Clan Heirs, as enemies.

For now, the two of them play at being the young children they like to think they aren’t. The younger brothers with no ‘spare’ implied they pretend they don’t wish they could be

_ (…out) _

Quietly, in the dulling trudge of his thoughts, Tobirama wonders.

_ (In…) _

Wonders what it would have been like, to not see himself so world weary and sure of himself. If he had bent even just a little, instead of standing surefooted. Would have anything changed? 

_ (In…) _

Would have nothing changed? Tobirama is only one man.

_ (In…) _

What if…

_ ( ) _


End file.
